Kodak unveiled its own bitcoin miner at CES, will let you rent it for $3,400 for two years

If you thought Kodak news couldn't get any stranger following the company's debut of a "photo-centric cryptocurrency" called KODAKCoin earlier this week... you were wrong. In a further attempt to cash in on the cryptocurrency mania currently spreading across the world, Kodak has debuted its own bitcoin mining machine at CES.

The bitcoin miner is called the Kodak KashMiner, and you can rent it for just $3,400 and keep a share of the profits you make mining bitcoin for the next 2 years.

We'll give you a moment to let the absurdity of those last few sentences soak in before we attempt to put this madness in context.

The deal, according to the pictures of Kodak's pamphlet about the KashMiner, is that you can rent the machine on a 2-year contract for $3,400. From there, contends Kodak—who clearly know their stuff, having been publically interested in cryptocurrency for a full 48 hours now—you will earn approximately $750 per month, half of which you get to keep while the other half goes to a company called Spotlite Energy Systems in California.

At that rate ($375 per month), you'll make $9,000 in 24 months, or approximately $5,600 in profit.

There's just one problem with that line of thinking. Okay, actually, there are a few, as many people with actual cryptocurrency mining knowhow pointed out on the twittersphere as soon as news of Kodak's bitcoin mining machine hit the headlines.

There is no way your magical Kodak miner will make the same $375 every month, unless Bitcoin mining difficulty stays the same. It is currently increasing at around 15% a month, so mining output should drop around 15% a month, too. Good luck to everyone who bought this deal! pic.twitter.com/0xA2HNtHFc

Basically, bitcoin mining will not produce the same output month after month for 2 full years, even in the unlikely even that the price stays at $14,000 per bitcoin. According to bitcoin economist Saifedean Ammous, mining difficulty is increasing by about 15% per month, which means your total output after 24 months will be a lot less than the advertised $9,000+. But even if Kodak's numbers were correct, there's one other problem.

It seems the KashMiner that Kodak is so graciously offering to rent you for $1,700 per year is just a rebranded Bitmain Antminer S9, an industry standard bitcoin miner that you can buy outright for just $2,320—a full $1,080 less than Kodak's 2-year rental fee.

Using the blockchain for copyright registration and tracking makes sense (and has been done before), and if Kodak wants to create its own cryptocurrency for photographers, it's a risk the company is more than welcome to take. In fact, at first, it seemed like a risk that was well worth taking, as Kodak's stock more than tripled on the news.

But this bitcoin mining rental scheme feels like something else entirely. If the bitcoin experts speaking out about this online are correct, either Kodak has no idea what it's doing, or this is a full-blown bitcoin mining scam.

Speaking as a cryptocurrency miner myself, I am going with the expressed view that Kodak has no idea what it's doing, rather than the more depressing view that they may be trying to scam unsuspecting consumers with little knowledge hoping to jump on the bandwagon, entranced by the noble and serious Kodak logo.

News Headline - Cryptocurrency experts left bewildered and offended by the unapologetic actions of a "legitimate" brand name trying to move in on the sham they have unapologetically setup for themselves.

Its not about money like Bitcoin.. nothing will give real $$ value to Kodak's cryptocurrency.

This is simply what they need in order to run their blockchain image signing copyright thingy service.

You are doing the work for them. You are a processor for their own product. Just like if Facebook charged you to use their service, but uploading your info for them to sell it on... See where Kodak is getting cheeky.. you are just an agent.

Kodak once was a bright star in the universe of photography, but it has until recently been a yellow dwarf. Now we are seeing the final supernova, until you realize that you have thrown all your money into a big black hole.

Yeah. They just have to be aware that their not going to be the huge company they once were and downscale their production of film. I mean there is still plenty of people that want to shoot film and processing has become unbearably difficult and expensive. Like damn, I want to shoot more film. Not because of aesthetics and such, but because the process is fun and it's something different than shooting digital.

It apparently uses the ledger to sign your pictures for copyright purposes using their image identity service.. can't be bothered to google the proper terms.

Basically in order for their image signing service to work they decided to produce their own cryptocurrency and this little device is required for it to work. No miners means no processing the ledger which means no value (there isn't anyway).

They are asking you to pay them to run a service which you MAY get a return on (only early adopters but that's big risk) but they will ultimately make the money.. if it is actually successful.

visualenvy - no, that's Kodak One, which is a totally separate thing. This is a different company licensing the Kodak name to mine Bitcoin. The only connection is that both companies have paid to slap the Kodak name on their product.

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